Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People eBook

(Tune: Oxford. To be sung off stage by the
Puritan maidens before they enter to take part in
the episode.)

Gone is now the sullen winter,
Gone the famine and the snow;
In the forest, like a promise,
See the first white mayflowers blow.

Fresh hope thrills us with their coming,
They, too, braved the winter long;
Then at Springtime took new leafage,
Frail yet steadfast, small but strong.

Cling we thus to our new country,
Let us struggle and endure;
We have found a land of Freedom,
And our heritage is sure.

THE SPINNING LESSON
(A Pilgrim Interlude)

CHARACTERS

PRISCILLA MULLINS
Lads of Plymouth Town
JOHN BILLINGTON
DEGORY MARTIN
Youthful Pilgrim Maidens
RUTH
PATIENCE
MIRIAM
LETTICE
ANNE
STAR-OF-SPRING, an Indian maiden
NATIQUA, a squaw, her mother
FOREST FLOWER, another Indian maiden
HERON’S WING, a young Indian brave

SCENE: A grassy glade at Plymouth in the Spring
of 1621, Trees right, left, and background. At
the beginning of the scene the grassy stage is deserted.
There presently enters from background Anne, a young
Pilgrim maid of about fourteen, whose somber garb
shows out darkly against the green background.
She looks quickly about her, right and left, shielding
her eyes with her hand. Then she calls back over
her shoulder to her companions, Diantha and Lettice.

ANNE (calling). Come quickly, Diantha.
Here is a fair spot for our corn-shelling, and not
a prowling Indian in sight.

[Diantha, slender, dark, and somewhat older than Anne,
enters with Lettice. They carry between them
an Indian basket of capacious size, in which are dried
ears of corn.

DIANTHA (clearly). Nay, we need have no fear;
for on one side Captain Miles Standish keeps watch,
and on the other John Alden; so as for Indians——­

LETTICE (as they come to center). One Indian
only have I seen this day, and to see him is ever a
sign of good omen.

DIANTHA. That means that Squanto is in Plymouth
Town, our good, true Indian friend. He it was
who taught us how to shell the corn, so many months
agone; he it was who taught us, this Spring, the manner
of sowing it.

LETTICE (holding up Indian basket). And here
is one of the Indian corn-baskets that Captain Standish
found buried in a strange wilderness spot when he
first explored these forests.

ANNE (drawing near to Lettice). These forests—!
Oh, my heart! As night draws on how dark and fearsome
they appear! And now that Spring is in the land
it sets me longing for English hedgerows.

[Sits on ground, left, and begins to shell corn.

LETTICE
(joining Anne in her work).
Do you remember the Spring in Leyden, Diantha?